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Faint of Heart Need Not Apply

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 22 / 24
Date: November 24, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Don't let those low-ranking reviews fool you. Burnout is a white-knuckle blast of adrenaline from start to finish, a racing, no, a CHASING game that grabs you by the throat from the start line and doesn't loosen its grip until you pass the finish line....if you can!

As is usual with racing games, the objective is simple: cross the finish line before time runs out, and ahead of your opponents. However, the setup with Burnout is anything but simple. The streets you race on are fully populated, with over 300 different types of cars that serve no purpose but to get in your way. You've gotta run red lights, drive on the wrong side of the road, and swerve like mad around semis and tankers, or scream your way through downtown at rush hour - just like you'd always like to do in real life, right? Each time you narrowly miss a jolting collision, your Burnout Meter fills up. When it's maxed, you hit the Boost button and try not to pass out from the sense of speed. If (make that WHEN) you screw up and hit another car, you're treated to the most realistic, bone-crunching crashes ever seen in a game. You'll wince every time, and you'll take greater care in the future. Get some friends together and watch em all go "OOOOOOOOO!!!"

Sound good? Well, it should. Burnout concentrates on a supersonic thrill ride, and delivers with an ever-increasing sense of danger. Bearing down on a checkpoint with a few scant seconds remaining, CPU car on your tail, you screech around a turn at 130 mph.....and see a bus bearing down on you. What do you do? Burnout is a combination of Crazy Taxi and the car chases from the film "Ronin." People who want a realistic racing engine and want to tweak their car's suspension till kingdom come should stick to Gran Turismo. Burnout's not the prettiest sight in gaming (although the tracks are rendered in surprisingly high detail and the game never budges from its smooth 60 frames per second) but there's so much constantly happening you won't notice, or care. This is an example of a game that's chock full of gameplay, including a fantastic multiplayer mode, extra modes you can unlock (including the unbelievable Survival Mode, in which you must try and navigate one of the game's 14 courses WITHOUT CRASHING...not easy at all), and even a Replay Mode for saving those especially horrendous accidents (and you'll have em, trust me). There are several cars to choose from, including a Muscle Car and a Saloon, and even a Bus and Tow Truck!

Fewer and fewer games these days are relying on a completely riveting, yet simple gaming experience. Anyone who wants a high-speed challenge or an unmatched, relentless sense of danger is hereby required to try Burnout!

Is that light red?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 19
Date: November 11, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Burnout rules. This was a nice surprise. I hadn't heard anything about this game until a friend showed it to me. He said it was the best racing game out there, so I had to ask the question. What about Gran Turismo? He said forget the graphics, just try it. Well I did and I have been playing it every day since. He was right, just turn down the music and turn up all of the other sounds. You don't miss the music when you hear the sound of your body crashing through the windshield at 150 mph. I've never seen a racing game like this that really makes you feel like your going that fast. The crashes are what makes this game. My friends and I noticed that just before we hit something we are actually ducking our heads and closing our eyes. Its that real, I kid you not. I love my GT3, but I think this one is more fun. Don't forget to select Dolby Surround Sound, you'll really hear it when you enter the tunnels. 3.2.1. GO

Simply awesome

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 13
Date: November 08, 2001
Author: Amazon User

So fast! So adictive! Burnout is a simple arcade racer that's not trying to be GT3 with all that car collecting and ultra realism its just trying to be fast and fun and it does that so well it hurts. Its real easy to learn, and when you do get it all wrong and hit the other racers or the traffic the crashes are cool. It makes you want an airbag fitted on your controller!

My nerves were burned out after playing this.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 12 / 16
Date: January 14, 2002
Author: Amazon User

"Burnout" is an okay game. It's fun to go whizzing through rush hour traffic at 130 mph. It's therapeutic in the sense that you can do stuff in this game that you wish you could do in real life.

The thing that makes me give this game two stars are the crashes. Yeah, they look realistic and cool and you can replay your crashes from about five different angles after you finish the track. But when you're racing someone and you crash, the game shows you how you crashed from three different views all while chewing up time on your clock. You can't skip the crash replays nor is there a setting preference to turn them off. It really throws off the flow of the game and irritates the living heck out of you!

You're racing along and you crash with 1:15 left on the clock. The computer kicks in and shows you how you crashed from 3 different slow-motion perspectives, but when you regain control of the game and race, you've lost 5 seconds thanks to the computer. What a gyp!

It was an okay rental, but I'm kind of bummed I wasted $... on it. If you want a good racing game, pick up "Gran Turismo 3". If you want a game that whips every other car game out there, grab "Grand Theft Auto 3". If you want to be annoyed by endless crash replays and limited playability, "Burnout" is for you.

Not perfect, but fun to play

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: November 22, 2001
Author: Amazon User

The game's not as great as advertised (of course, nothing ever is), but it's better than most. The damage to your car is visible and affects it's performance, unlike some other games where the manufacturer like their cars to remain pristine following three car pileups (cough*GT3*cough). I only have two complaints. First, the interior view makes you feel like the Flash running at 150 mph through the streets (sans car it's a little disorienting). Having a windshield and hood in front of you would make things a little easier. Secondly, the grey car against grey roadway leads to many accidents. On the plus side I like the fact that the oncoming traffic has enough intelligence to flash their lights and try to avoid you; instead of just remaining on course and plowing into you.

I guess the replays of accidents during gameplay is a matter of preference. But, I figure that if you're going to be given a time penalty following a crash, you might as well get to view the carnage. Lastly, for the people that complained that it was too easy and "beat it" in no time at all: get some friends, the game is great head-to-head with a room full of hecklers trying to pull you off your game and calling next.

a fast driver's dream!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: November 12, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Finally I can race my car down busy city steets at 135mph! For the casual gamer this game is worth every penny. So much fun, spectacular crashes, great speed, great replays, great sound... easy to set up and get started... forget all the technical GT3 stuff, this game rocks!

Rent it if you aren't convinced, but you'll buy it once you do. Just don't buy it if you just got your license... it might get you into trouble. All this game is missing are the cops!

Burnout

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: November 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game is IGN editors choice award winning game and is great.

Great Rental

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 11, 2001
Author: Amazon User

So you see burnout's adds and you think 'Wow' and you rush out and rent it and sit down to play. You start it up and play for about 45 minutes with a slack-jawed, awe struck look on your face, but then it stops. You suddenly realise that you can have fun racing and crashing but only for so long, it lacks corperate sponsership, thus generic car models and it's rather redundent, after you race a few times, the rest of the maps are pretty much the same map backwards and at night.
In the end: Great Idea, Great Graphics, Great Soundtrack, Poor exectuion. Unless your a hardcore racing fan of old school style racing, RENT THIS BEFORE YOU BUY!!

Im Tired of Company reps writing their own "reviews"

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: November 17, 2001
Author: Amazon User

There's no way this game can be considered as good as many of these reviews. Either these positive reviews are made by company reps, or the person just doesnt have any experience with other, more advanced games. Either way, they need to find a better way to screen out these obvious "OFF THE MARK" reviews

great fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: December 08, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Visually, Burnout is a superb looking title with solid visuals. They are next-generation worthy that's for sure, as they feature excellent vehicular detail and great environmental detail. The cars are very well detailed. They are made up of great texture work, and feature very nice chroming and lighting reflections in part with the environments. The environments of Burnout range from American cities (not real ones, just by atmosphere) to European cities. The craftsmanship is done well for every stage in the game, as they do great jobs of resembling their respective countries.

Perhaps what's most interesting in Burnout's visuals is the real-time damage. Crashing the vehicles is really half of the fun, and when looking at a manually controlled replay, you can see that each and every crash's side effect (damage to the car) has various animation strands. In other words, when looking at the direct impact, playing a couple of milliseconds of the replay, and pausing it again, you'll see that the car begins to show its damage. The severe dents just don't flash on the vehicle in one animation, you can actually see the crunching occur in front of your eyes. The frame rate is crisp, and rarely drops from its set point of 60, even with all of those traffic cars on screen at once. The game does suffer from some flickering and a few aliasing issues, but it's nothing overwhelming, but it is there. While they can't compare to what Gran Turismo 3 has set for us (and let's face it, that won't happen for a while), Burnout is a solid looking title with a blistering frame rate to boot.

Burnout manages to cast itself as hybrid of Test Drive and Need for Speed, with a dash of originality. The core of the game revolves around the initially mentioned, but the latter comes in as a little emphasis to the racing. Burnout is a true arcade racer, and there's no doubt about it. Unlike NFS and TD, the game has a counter counting down, and refreshing every time you hit a checkpoint. There are many cars to choose from, 5 being the initially available, with three different styles of handling. The smaller vehicles are easier to control as they are more nimble. The speedier vehicles, while harder to handle, are much quicker but handle loosely. The larger vehicles, like the pickup, are the hardest to manuever, but the best when it comes down to muscle on the road. The opposition will try to hit you to oncoming traffic by hitting you from the side, although the oncoming traffic will try to swerve out of the way though; key word was "try". If an accident happens you'll see on the screen what the insurance bill would've been, due to the outcome of the crash. Tally up a high insurance bill in one race, and your name will go down in the record books. But on the downside, I did feel that after an hour or two of gameplay, Burnout begins to wear out and slowly become repetitive.

You have to race three laps around one stage, and some stages are reasonably long, as one lap could add up to 3 minutes, turning a three lap race into a 9-10 minute event. What makes it even more grueling are the consequences; let's say you're playing a race and leading it throughout the whole time, until suddenly you crash at the very end and your opponent passes you, and the qualifying position doesn't allow you to settle for second. So now you have to replay those ten minutes of racing on the same track once again, only to have it happen once again! Now you're utterly frustrated and discouraged, and don't want to continue playing the game anymore, but maybe you would, had the tracks been shorter -and this has happened to me once too many. Burnout does retain a great sense of speed, especially because it runs at 60 frames per second. To define the sense of speed even more, Burnout has a little adrenaline gauge that fills up every time you are doing some risky as you drive. If you pass between two vehicles cleanly, the meter will go up heavily, if you closely pass by a car the meter will increase as well, if you drive towards (and passed) oncoming traffic the speed meter will increase dramatically. My pet peeve with Burnout is that you can't explore the game's stages, nor can you just cruise around and not have to worry about the clock. I feel the game is claustrophobic in terms of offering me any deeming extras; hopefully a sequel will improve upon that. Altogether, Burnout is a fun game that can be even more fun when playing with a friend.

Burnout's controls range from slippery to stable, mostly because of the different controls the cars have depending on their class. Some cars can take quite some time to get used to, while others are like gloves and grip the road wonderfully. The analog sticks work great with the game. You can get a good feel for the vehicles using the analog, instead of the touchy digital. When crashing, the Dual Shock does a great job at making you feel the impact because of the rumble's power. Adjusting to the control's layout should take no time, everything is as general as it could possibly get for a racing game, that and the right analog stick is compatible for acceleration and braking. Perhaps the best feature is the use of the GT Force/Driving Force Logitech wheel. The game is fully compatible to work with the wheel.

In the end, while not groundbreaking by any means, Burnout is a fast arcade racer with pretty visuals, great speed, somewhat frustrating but solid gameplay, superb controls and great Dolby compatible audio.

8 / 10

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